Track of the Cat

Introduction by filmmaker/critic Gina Telaroli

Mitchum reunited with his Story of G.I. Joe director William Wellman (“I was very, very fond of him,” Mitchum said of Wellman, “and he tolerated me”) for a different kind of movie, based on a Walter Van Tilburg Clark novel, about a homesteading family in snow country whose livestock is being destroyed by a roaming mountain lion. Wellman and his DP William Clothier (The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance) worked out a stark visual design, keeping everything—sets, costumes, make-up, and exteriors—in black and white tones, with the exceptions of one scarlet hunting jacket and one yellow scarf. They also shot on location at Mt. Rainier, where 30-foot snowdrifts made for the most arduous and exhausting shoot of Mitchum’s career.